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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

Most low cost digitals are sold to families with kids. Most kids like playing with the extra sounds. It is as simple as that. If a kid becomes serious about piano, the family will often buy an acoustic.

For stage pianos, many keyboard players are members of a band, where the extra sounds often come in handy.

Most low cost digitals are sold to families with kids. Most kids like playing with the extra sounds. It is as simple as that.

My wife teaches private piano, and she uses the DP as a something of a treat for the little ones. Most of the lesson is on the AP, and at the end they often move to the DP. The student gets to pick among the various sounds while they play their piece over and over (and over). Good way to stimulate practice. (Really young students with weak fingers often have their lessons entirely on the DP due to the somewhat lighter action.)

This is another reason the RD-700NX is nice, there are gobs of sounds in there, and the UI is simple enough for children and non-technical adults to grasp the rudiments fairly intuitively.

Most low cost digitals are sold to families with kids. Most kids like playing with the extra sounds. It is as simple as that.

My wife teaches private piano, and she uses the DP as a something of a treat for the little ones. Most of the lesson is on the AP, and at the end they often move to the DP. The student gets to pick among the various sounds while they play their piece over and over (and over). Good way to stimulate practice. (Really young students with weak fingers often have their lessons entirely on the DP due to the somewhat lighter action.)

This is another reason the RD-700NX is nice, there are gobs of sounds in there, and the UI is simple enough for children and non-technical adults to grasp the rudiments fairly intuitively.

I suppose it depends on how serious the child is about learning to play the piano. I watched a documentary film recently about child prodigies in Russia - the audition for the music school included the teacher playing several seven-note chords (not straightforward diatonic ones, with the two hands spaced apart) on her piano, then the child (about 7 years old) repeats those chords, note-for-note, instantly, without being able to see the teacher's hands. This depends not just on the child having absolute pitch, but also highly developed musical ears.

One would expect that children like that won't need funny sounds to keep them interested in learning to play the piano and keep practising.....

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Bennevis, your point is well taken, but I do not think life is as straight forward, or the path between great and small quite so linear as your comparison would suggest. I'd be willing to bet that Haydn, Mozart & Beethoven, for instance, would have been very taken with the range of sounds that come on a Casio, Roland or Korg. I bet they'd have been intrigued - inspired with new ideas even.

bennevis, if that were the standard for learning to play, very few people would ever learn. I would not want a world where the playing of music is confined to child prodigies who spend hours a day focused on their instruments and have no time for sports or play or sleepovers with their friends. Much of learning to play the piano is drudgery (PLAYING is fun, learning to play not so much). If one can make learning more fun for children, why wouldn't you want that? If one can make the creation of music accessible to more people, why wouldn't one want that?

For my own playing, I find that practicing pieces with different sounds helps me learn them more solidly. Also, it's just fun sometimes. I love the sound of the piano, and love playing piano. But sometimes it can be fun to layer a pad under it, or play a piece with the vibraphone (or whatever), or improvise a bit with a bass sound in the left hand split, etc...

bennevis, if that were the standard for learning to play, very few people would ever learn. I would not want a world where the playing of music is confined to child prodigies who spend hours a day focused on their instruments and have no time for sports or play or sleepovers with their friends. Much of learning to play the piano is drudgery (PLAYING is fun, learning to play not so much). If one can make learning more fun for children, why wouldn't you want that? If one can make the creation of music accessible to more people, why wouldn't one want that?

For my own playing, I find that practicing pieces with different sounds helps me learn them more solidly. Also, it's just fun sometimes. I love the sound of the piano, and love playing piano. But sometimes it can be fun to layer a pad under it, or play a piece with the vibraphone (or whatever), or improvise a bit with a bass sound in the left hand split, etc...

Point taken, but I have an awful suspicion that if I'd started out learning on such a DP as a child, I wouldn't have become a classical pianist and be able to play most of the world's great piano music that's been composed over the past few centuries.

I was very intrigued by, and learning about new things - especially mechanical ones that I can participate in. (I loved designing and making model planes that can fly, and taking things apart to see how they worked, for instance). If I had a DP that could give me all sorts of sounds and rhythm accompaniments etc when I was learning to play, I'd have spent all my 'practice' time playing with all those possibilities, rather than building up my technique and musicianship - which required thousands of hours of incessant practising, and listening critically to myself playing, for which there are no short-cuts (as I was no prodigy ).

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Point taken, but I have an awful suspicion that if I'd started out learning on such a DP as a child, I wouldn't have become a classical pianist and be able to play most of the world's great piano music that's been composed over the past few centuries....If I had a DP that could give me all sorts of sounds and rhythm accompaniments etc when I was learning to play, I'd have spent all my 'practice' time playing with all those possibilities, rather than building up my technique

We are largely the sum of our experiences, some within in our control, and some not. If your parents had started you off on some keyboard with lots of sounds, you might be right that you would not have developed the same orientation of a classical pianist, but who knows, maybe it would have put you on an early path to being an orchestrator. Or auto-accompaniment may have led you down a path more toward composition. There's no better or worse here, really, as it is impossible to know which may have ultimately been more rewarding!

If I had a DP that could give me all sorts of sounds and rhythm accompaniments etc when I was learning to play, I'd have spent all my 'practice' time playing with all those possibilities, rather than building up my technique and musicianship - which required thousands of hours of incessant practising, and listening critically to myself playing, for which there are no short-cuts

Maybe, who knows? You might have ended up a composer instead of playing songs of composers that have long since died.

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A long long time ago, I can still rememberHow that music used to make me smile....

If I had a DP that could give me all sorts of sounds and rhythm accompaniments etc when I was learning to play, I'd have spent all my 'practice' time playing with all those possibilities, rather than building up my technique and musicianship - which required thousands of hours of incessant practising, and listening critically to myself playing, for which there are no short-cuts

Maybe, who knows? You might have ended up a composer instead of playing songs of composers that have long since died.

Actually, I've been composing since my late teens - very bad music, with more style than substance, that I've only ever played to a select few (who probably wished they hadn't been selected ): mostly for solo piano, but also a few chamber works and songs. In several different styles, including a couple of tangos and some jazz-inspired pieces. Plus an experimental atonal piece in which anything resembling a tune or recognizable harmony is purely coincidental. (A Mozart I'm not. Not even a John Williams.... ). I also improvise - again badly, in a variety of styles.

My opus currently runs to no. 147 at present....

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

The sound are, because when I pay 3-4k USD for the piano, adding few more sounds doesn't cost too much, but gives marketing advantage from one side,from another - as I pianist I would like sometimes to play on good quality organs, harpsihord, some rhodes or jazz piano. I plan piano for fun so why not to have a little bit more fun?

It's for us, I uderstand that here are few piano purist, however let's be happy because of few more sounds

I think a lot of the reasoning behind these extra sounds is 'because they can'. Nearly every major DP manufacturer also makes some type of workstation or 61-key "rompler" or did at one time, so why not add select simplified versions of those sounds to their lines of DP's? They're already sampled and ready to go, and sometimes they even reside on a different chip than the piano voices so they may not necessarily 'cut in' to the memory allocated to the piano patches, even if negligible.

I have also seen some of these used as "filler" in live musical theatre productions (usually electric piano, organs, harpsichord and strings). There are those who have an occasional need for those additional bread-n-butter sounds. For more than an occasional need, of course I'd recommend a synthesizer or workstation (or a real orchestra if you can afford it), but the additional sounds can have a use out in the wild. Keep in mind that DP manufacturers need to cater to both contemporary and classical style players and stocking a 'bare-bones' and 'deluxe' model is both prohibitive for the manufacturer and the retailer who has to find room to display and store them!

I come from the other side of the spectrum where my keyboards focus on the additional sounds and the piano is 'extra', so I couldn't really see myself using a Digital Piano's string ensemble patch in a serious setting, but there are those that do, either out of enjoyment or necessity.

I guess my opinion is "don't worry about it". The price seems dictated by the keyboard action rather than the on-board sounds anyway, so I doubt (highly) that their elimination would produce any noticeable lurch forward in piano realism, or lurch downward in price. I think of it like I think of my computer. I rarely use all the features, but it's part of the deal. Can't make everyone happy .

Beethoven's Gross Fugue - just about the last thing he did - was Op.135. Brahms notched up Opus 122 before he died whilst Anton Webern managed a mere 36 terse opuses. But Bennevis, who lists mountaineering, hang gliding and advanced orienteering among his pass times, and professes musically to concentrate on classical performance rather than composition, casually mentions that he (...if indeed this be the gender....) has already completed 147 opuses. Might I be entertaining a romantic fancy in assuming that these are accomplished before lavage each morning?

Beethoven's Gross Fugue - just about the last thing he did - was Op.135. Brahms notched up Opus 122 before he died whilst Anton Webern managed a mere 36 terse opuses. But Bennevis, who lists mountaineering, hang gliding and advanced orienteering among his pass times, and professes musically to concentrate on classical performance rather than composition, casually mentions that he (...if indeed this be the gender....) has already completed 147 opuses. Might I be entertaining a romantic fancy in assuming that these are accomplished before lavage each morning?

What ever the case may be, this is phenomenal!

I wish that something along the scale of Sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum number among my opuses , but the truth is that most of my pieces are barely five minutes in length (and those are the slow ones...). Less than fifteen minutes' worth of music composed every 365 days barely register on the (Sviatoslav) Richter scale in terms of time and effort taken. (And don't forget, there's plenty of style, but little substance in them ).

Nothing at all compared to Wolfie composing his last three symphonies (each lasting half an hour, and each a masterpiece) in less than three months - not that I'm comparing my feeble efforts to that of my favourite composer, of course.....

As for my outdoor and underwater activities, they are mostly concentrated during my annual (or biannual, or triannual) vacation. Apart from my running.......

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

You say your favourite composer is Wolfie. This is interesting as I must admit I've never heard of him (if this be the gender). In fact, the only Wolfie I can recall was the leading member of the Tooting Popular Front, back in the mid 70s. In fact, he was also the only member, afaicr.

I've begun to try 'composing'. The pieces are short. One minute seems about the average. There is so much to be said, the thin g is to find different - unexpected - ways of saying them. This takes bollocks, or good old fashioned courage.

It also comes in very handy that I have hundreds of sounds in the DP. This is a paint box - a very crude affair, perhaps, compared to the sophisticated VST sound sets that people use for this kind of work. Nevertheless, I'm finding my feet with this facility, and to my ears, more than 10 percent sound good. To that extent, I'm very grateful to Roland for putting them into this relatively lowly DP. They're tools, and emphatically not gimmicks.

I've begun to try 'composing'. The pieces are short. One minute seems about the average. There is so much to be said, the thin g is to find different - unexpected - ways of saying them. This takes bollocks, or good old fashioned courage.

It also comes in very handy that I have hundreds of sounds in the DP. This is a paint box - a very crude affair, perhaps, compared to the sophisticated VST sound sets that people use for this kind of work. Nevertheless, I'm finding my feet with this facility, and to my ears, more than 10 percent sound good. To that extent, I'm very grateful to Roland for putting them into this relatively lowly DP. They're tools, and emphatically not gimmicks.

I believe there is a Sibelius program/software that commits to print/file exactly what you play on the keyboard - makes 'composing' a doddle as you don't even need to be able to read/write music. I don't know how many 'real' composers use it, but I've seen some 'compositions' that make me suspect this, when notes fly randomly around the staves with all sorts of weird cross-rhythms which make no sense - except when someone is doodling at the keyboard....

Anyway, all this technology is beyond my feeble brain. I just write my music on manuscript paper, then check out what I've written by playing it on the piano afterwards, and make corrections/alterations as necessary.

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

"Anyway, all this technology is beyond my feeble brain. I just write my music on manuscript paper, then check out what I've written by playing it on the piano afterwards, and make corrections/alterations as necessary."

At least you do it properly! I`ve recorded stuff, but the music`s in me `ed. This Sibelius sounds up my street . . . Just - Play and LO! . . .Music appears . . how good`s that??

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"I'm playing all the right notes � but not necessarily in the right order." Eric Morecambe

"Anyway, all this technology is beyond my feeble brain. I just write my music on manuscript paper, then check out what I've written by playing it on the piano afterwards, and make corrections/alterations as necessary."

At least you do it properly! I`ve recorded stuff, but the music`s in me `ed. This Sibelius sounds up my street . . . Just - Play and LO! . . .Music appears . . how good`s that??

Do you remember a guy on a BBC reality TV show called 'Goldie' (I think), who couldn't read music?

He 'composed' a piece of music using the Sibelius stuff, then someone orchestrated (and corrected/improved) his music for him under his verbal instructions, and then even got it played by a symphony orchestra.....

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Anyway, all this technology is beyond my feeble brain. I just write my music on manuscript paper, then check out what I've written by playing it on the piano afterwards, and make corrections/alterations as necessary.

Actually, the Sibelius and Finale softwares are very expensive as well as they take a very long time (or, learning curve) to figure out how to use them. So, I do as you do and end up writing down my occasional transcription by hand, instead.

Edit:...and quite usable, just taking care of how it works, I mean, configuring the sheet (bar width, number of bars, etc) right before you begin to enter the notes, and leaving some details (expression ties) to the final stage.Of course it takes some time to learn how to use it, but it's very well done. If you are working on easy or short pieces, it's faster to write it yourself on the fly.But for larger/difficult pieces, combos, lead sheets or some purposes (i.e. transposition)...it's a great tool. And you can enter notes via midi, too.I often use it to get the sheets cleaner, for my teacher gives them to me hand-written, sometimes.

Point taken, but I have an awful suspicion that if I'd started out learning on such a DP as a child, I wouldn't have become a classical pianist and be able to play most of the world's great piano music that's been composed over the past few centuries.

I was very intrigued by, and learning about new things - especially mechanical ones that I can participate in. (I loved designing and making model planes that can fly, and taking things apart to see how they worked, for instance). If I had a DP that could give me all sorts of sounds and rhythm accompaniments etc when I was learning to play, I'd have spent all my 'practice' time playing with all those possibilities, rather than building up my technique and musicianship - which required thousands of hours of incessant practising, and listening critically to myself playing, for which there are no short-cuts (as I was no prodigy ).

Yeah but you might have been able to learn how to play more varied types of music that maybe even other people would pay to hear and make a living out of it. You never know where things might lead. I've never had a piano lesson in my life and yet I've probably played to more people then most classical pianists in history. Some of its practice , some of its technique .... But most of its just pure luck.

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"I'm still an idiot and I'm still in love" - Blue Sofa - The Plugz 1981 (Tito Larriva) Disclosure : I am professionally associated with Arturia but my sentiments are my own only.

Yeah but you might have been able to learn how to play more varied types of music that maybe even other people would pay to hear and make a living out of it. You never know where things might lead. I've never had a piano lesson in my life and yet I've probably played to more people then most classical pianists in history. Some of its practice , some of its technique .... But most of its just pure luck.

I realized quite early on that I had no gift for music, or playing the piano - my cousins (who were responsible for my parents wanting their children to learn piano - keeping up with the Joneses and all that....) were younger than me but already playing Mozart's Rondo alla turca at 8 (well, they did start learning piano at 5), while I could just about pick out 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' at 10 .

My parents weren't musical - there was hardly any music in the home before the piano arrived. I listened to pop and rock songs on the radio like everyone else, but it wasn't until by chance when (after being given a short-wave radio, which I promptly took apart...) I tuned in to a classical music request program on BBC World Service (I wasn't living in the West then) that I found music that really 'spoke' to me. It was Mozart's Symphony No.40: that first movement kept haunting me, until I finally saved enough money to go to a record shop and buy an LP of it to play on the turntable at home (which was gathering dust until then). And I knew then that it was classical music that would dominate my listening (and keep my interest in playing the piano going), regardless of what my friends and parents thought. I had, and still have, a thick enough skin that I didn't care what people thought of me.....

I had no interest in playing any other kind of music until many years later, when it was sort of fun occasionally to jam with friends playing pop music (even if I'd never heard the songs before - I just improvised my way through them ), as we once did on an Alaskan ferry, to an appreciative (?) audience. I also played the odd classical recital for fun or for charity. But I didn't think it would be right for me to make any money out of my piano playing when there are so many pianists (young and not-so-young) struggling to get concert engagements, so I'd never take on any 'job' where a fee was offered (- or should have been offered), which I thought would be better suited to a professional pianist.

Oddly enough, I have no qualms at all about making money out of my (amateur) photography by selling my mountaineering and travel photos to magazines, etc. I figured that if a professional photographer can't climb, he won't be able to get the photos I got, so I'm not depriving him of his income......

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

Funny isnt it. I have one keyboard, not even full size (5 octaves). I bought it in 1999 for under £200. Now although it has, for its class a fantastic piano voice,and a great DSP it also contains over 100 other voices. OK theyre all sampled so are pretty authentic but I only wanted a piano voice. So when I get chance to play it I end up playing through the various voices and forgetting why I switched it on!And annoyingly at the time it was almost impossible to buy a digital piano for that kind of money, yet it was quite possible to buy a home keyboard complete with midi and 4 track recorder!!

Edited by LarryShone (03/15/1306:37 PM)

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If the piano is the King of instruments then I am its loyal servant.My SoundcloudCasio Celviano AP-450